ABSTRACT
Laura Esposito joined the US Army shortly after September 11, 2001, and for her it was the culmination of a long-held dream. She is one of some 180,000 American women who have deployed to the wars in Iraq Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) and Operation New Dawn (OND) and Afghanistan Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF). Laura's story illustrates a number of stressors that occur across the deployment cycle, all of which have relevance for understanding post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) among this new generation of female warriors. The most obvious of these is combat itself, conflict- related violence that is inexorably a part of war. The past decade has seen enormous effort by the Veterans Affairs (VA) to better understand and address women's health service needs, and yet difficulties remain. Women may be more likely to face logistical barriers to care-seeking, such as a lack of knowledge about VA eligibility or a lack of child care to allow them to attend appointments.
